Tina Marie and Jen - Insights on the Individual Contributor Pathway

Promoting your best individual contributor into management might feel like a reward, but it’s often the fastest route to frustration, misalignment, and avoidable turnover. We sit down with HR leaders Tina-Marie Wolfield and Jennifer “Jen” DuPont to unpack what a robust individual contributor career path actually looks like and why modern organizations can’t afford to treat people leadership as the only way to grow.

• Click HERE for Tina-Marie's LinkedIn profile
• Click HERE for Jen's LinkedIn profile
• Click HERE for the TIMAWO website
• Click HERE for the HRUnite! website
• Click HERE to get a copy of Tina-Marie's book

HERE ARE MORE RESOURCES FROM REAL GOOD VENTURES:

Never miss a good opportunity to learn from a bad boss...

Click HERE to get your very own Reference Profile.  We use The Predictive Index as our analytics platform so you know it's validated and reliable.  Your Reference Profile informs you of your needs, behaviors, and the nuances of what we call your Behavioral DNA.  It also explains your work style, your strengths, and even the common traps in which you may find yourself.  It's a great tool to share with friends, family, and co-workers.

Follow us on Instagram HERE and make sure to share with your network!

Follow us on X HERE and make sure to share with your network!

Provide your feedback HERE, please!  We love to hear from our listeners and welcome your thoughts and ideas about how to improve the podcast and even suggest topics and ideas for future episodes.

Visit us at www.realgoodventures.com.  We are a Talent Optimization consultancy specializing in people and business execution analytics.  Real Good Ventures was founded by Sara Best and John Broer who are both Certified Talent Optimization Consultants with over 50 years of combined consulting and organizational performance experience.  Sara is also certified in EQi 2.0.  RGV is also a Certified Partner of Line-of-Sight, a powerful organizational health and execution platform.  RGV is known for its work in leadership development, executive coaching, and what we call organizational rebuild where we bring all our tools together to diagnose an organization's present state and how to grow toward a stronger future state. 

Transcript

Welcome And Why It Matters

John Broer 0:04

A warm welcome to all of our friends out there in The Boss hole Transformation Nation. This is your host, John Broer, welcoming you to this installment of The Boss hole Chronicles. Also excited to introduce you to two subject matter experts that I have invited to join me today to have a conversation around, and I've been wanting to do this for a long time, the individual contributor pathway. We've talked about it for years here on the Boss Hole Chronicles, that the shortest distance into The Boss hole Zone is taking a great individual contributor and promoting them into management or a supervisory role when perhaps they're not ready for it, they really don't care to go into it, but that's the only way to advance in an organization. And I insist organizations that are really responsive to the workplace today have built out these more robust individual contributor pathways. So let me tell you about the two subject matter experts that I've asked to join me today. Alright, to start things out, you're going to meet Tina Marie Wolfield. She is the chief people strategist at TIMAWO and founder of the HR Unite community, which is a professional networking group, to support and advance the HR profession through impactful professional relationships. She is an HR storyteller, author, and active member of our HR community as a dedicated advocate for advancing the HR profession. I mentioned that she's an author. Her first book, Stop, Collaborate, and Listen, Developing Impactful HR Relationships Through Collaboration, is available through Lulu Publishing. And by the way, you'll find the contact information and all kinds of resources about our subject matter experts in the show notes, so make sure you check that out. Joining Tina Marie in this episode is Jennifer DuPont, and she goes by Jen. And let me tell you a little bit about Jen. She is a strategic HR executive with more than 25 years of experience in human resources, business operations, and transformation. As a senior director and strategic people partner at Kelly, she partners with executive leaders to translate business strategy into organizational design, change management, talent planning, and data-driven people solutions that elevate performance and engagement. And of course, we love the whole data-driven stuff. Jen recently completed a Master of Organization Development at Bowling Green State University, where she was able to deepen her expertise in change management, systems thinking, and organizational effectiveness. She's very active in Sherm as well as the HR community through ongoing professional development and industry involvement. And so what you're going to hear is a conversation where I where I ask them these questions about, you know, what does it take to create a more robust individual contributor pathway, help our employees take ownership of their own growth and their development and not wait for us to do it. And practical examples of how you, our listeners, can begin to do this right now because this is what the workplace demands. Expecting everybody to move into management is just unrealistic and it doesn't work for everybody, and we need really strong individual contributors. So join me in welcoming Tina Marie and Jen for this installment of The Boss hole Chronicles. The Boss hole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Well, Tina Marie and Jen, welcome to the Boss Hole Chronicles. So good to have you here.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 4:00

Glad to be here, John. Thanks for the invite.

Future Skills And Talent Alignment

John Broer 4:03

Absolutely. Um, and by the way, our listeners know that Tina Marie, you are a returning guest. Uh, I went back and looked, believe it or not, your original episode on the Boss Hole Chronicles aired in January of 2021. Can you believe that? I mean, I was just shocked when I looked at that. And the the uh title was blind spots. I remember us talking about that and the blind spots that people experience in the in the organization. But we're gonna talk about a similar blind spot, I think, relative to today. Our listeners know the whole point of this, and I have been talking about this for months, is organizations that are failing to embrace and understand the need for a robust and and very healthy individual contributor pathway. In other words, when we take individual contributors and shove them into a management or supervisory position, that is like, as I say, a bullet train into the bosshole zone. And that's not what we want to do. We need to be more thoughtful and more thorough. So I've invited both of you, subject matter experts that are doing this kind of work to be on the program. And we know what the issue is. So let's level set and hear from each of you on why this is such a critical issue in the marketplace today. So, Tina Marie, can we start with you?

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 5:19

I think if if you kind of look forward thinking, which obviously a lot of organizations do have that mindset, the workplace readiness skills or the skills that we're gonna need, I'm gonna say four to five years from now. So if we even look at 2030, 2031, the skill set the workforce is gonna need is shifting significantly and has continued to shift with AI, with automation, and just innovation and what we need for skill set. And so when you kind of put into perspective how we're approaching talent alignment in the organization, that's a term I like to say. So we want to take what the skills we're gonna need, the organization skills we're gonna need for strategic alignment and growth. So that's our perspective with the employee perspective. And that's like, what are the skills our workers have or desire to have as career goals? We need to find that intersection between the two, which is where you find that talent alignment. So we're heavily leveraging the skill set in the organization and helping employees grow and then helping us meet our goals. The way we approach this whole concept and focusing on 20% of the organization, the leadership side, we're we're leaving out 80% of our utility players and we truly need them, especially what we're gonna be heading into for the next four, five, 10, 15 years. Um, so it's a good holistic approach to look at from a skill set only, not from a leadership title, but how does an employee learn? How does an employee adapt? Um, and what is their purpose? What do they want to do? And so when we assume, you know, you go into the bosshole zone, we assume that Jen wants to be a leader and her, she aspires to be the CEO. She probably doesn't. She probably wants to go hang out on a beach on a Starbucks someday, stress free, just doing her thing. But that's where we have this misalignment and we're missing again on those core utility players in the organization, the 80% of the people that are going to get us to where we need to be one, three, five, 10 years out.

John Broer 7:31

Helpful, very helpful. And I think that is reminiscent of our initial conversation a few weeks ago when we talked about, I think you said uh both of you highlighted the fact that, you know, the old top-down approach really needs to be inverted. We need to definitely take more of a bottom-up approach when we are considering this individual contributor pathway and making it more robust and changing the way we changing our mindset about it too. Okay, that that's great. Jen, what about you? Give us your perspective on how critical this issue is and why the marketplace needs to embrace it.

Why The Old Promotion Model Fails

Jennifer DuPont 8:07

It is a critical need right now. And I do think we're in a shifting environment where we do need to start thinking about, like you said, Tina Marie, instead of that top down, that bottoms up, and thinking about what employees want from their careers. Because at the end of the day, if we want engaged employees, we want to retain them, we need to understand what their desires are. And I think you hit on something, John, when you mentioned, you know, having to move up into management. That's an old mindset that in order to promote, to evolve in your career, to get more money, you have to take on higher level roles to lead people. And not everybody wants to do that, not everybody's made to do that. So we have to think about the really critical skills that the company needs. So it's always that match, right? What the company needs to be successful, how we're we're planning, strategic workforce planning. But then what does the market have available? What do the employees have desire around? So making sure that we're creating those abilities for people to invest in skills and become really good individual contributors that are evolving. I mean, we talk about AI every day. Are we giving them the skills, the opportunities, the experiences to develop in their role and then listening to what they want to do? You know, I think there are some professions and industries, you know, think about um doctors or teachers where people go into that field for a very specific reason and they develop their skills and their expertise. And then we want them to manage people or move into administrative roles that are totally different than what drives them every day. Right. So we've got to be really careful about why we're asking people to do something and how that serves the organization. And I think listening, understanding, cataloging where these people sit around the organization, what are the progressive skills that we need to be investing in to give them those opportunities? You know, we're collecting experiences, we're collecting training opportunities. All of those things have value. And it doesn't necessarily have to result in a different job title or leading people if that's not what is desired by an employee, and if that's not what the organization needs. So I do think there is a way for us to come to a win-win agreement with employees and with leaders and companies to make sure that we're satisfying the needs all around.

The Bottlenecks Holding Companies Back

John Broer 10:14

Great, very helpful. Well, one of the things that that really sparked this is, as you both know, and I know we've all had experience with with this, speaking around to different at different conferences and and events. But whenever I mention the idea of this very broad and more robust individual contributor pathway, giving employees and our associates some ownership in terms of their career development. Um, don't assume anything, make them an active participant. I get a lot of head nodding in the audience. But then when I asked how many of you actually have what you would consider to be a fairly substantial individual contributor pathway, nothing. I might get one or two hands. So let me ask you, and I'll and give you both a chance to respond to this. What is the bottleneck? I mean, it it totally makes sense. The old, I would say, command and control, we've realized that the old command and control way of running an organization, it's archaic. It really doesn't satisfy the needs of the emerging workforce. Quite frankly, it never really worked. But what do you see as the bottleneck for making this happen? And maybe Jen will throw this one to you and then have Tina Marie jump in.

Jennifer DuPont 11:28

I think it is a bottleneck because it's an old mindset, it's an old way of thinking, it's a hierarchy. We want things to follow a certain path, but I do think the future of work is going to be more agile. It's going to be more reactive to what we need in the moment. And I really believe in empowering people. And I love that you mentioned owning your career because at the end of the day, it is on the employee to own their career. I mean, no one's going to advocate for you as much as you will for yourself. I think we've all learned that lesson in life where you think you work really hard, you do all the things, you hope someone notices, and that's not always the case. People are busy, they're focused on their own careers. So I think we need to enable the employees. We need to give them the tools, the networks, the relationships for them to start to enable this for themselves because it will benefit the company and the employee ultimately when they are able to opt into those trainings, look into those skills, figure out the problems of the organization without having to work through the bureaucracy of the hierarchy and asking permission. So it's a mindset shift. And I think we're we're probably going to reach a breaking point soon because we're all so busy. We're asking so much. There's only so much capacity for each employee. If we don't create those systems, the work is going to suffer. And the employees are going to get frustrated and they're going to go work for the companies that do enable that. So, you know, when we talk about retention and turnover, and you know, obviously there is a cost to every business, you know, if you don't do that, we have to create those systems. If not, someone else will do it and we're going to lose talent.

John Broer 12:58

And they'll and they'll attract the talent. That's exactly right. Those organizations now that I think are very successful in employer branding around the development of our employees or us or associates, I think those are the ones that are winning the game, the talent game. They're they're attracting. And if they I mean, if they fail to follow through on it, obviously they're going to lose, and that'll just simply tarnish that employer brand. But they're the ones that are really attracting the that talent and that are appealing to them. Yeah, absolutely. So Tina Marie, the bottleneck, from your perspective, why are we stuck?

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 13:33

I think there's two reasons we're stuck. One is our leaders that we have today, the people that have to have the ability to have conversations with the people we lead about what skills they have, what do they want to do, what drives them, what do they know? When you look at the way we approach recruiting, we focus on what do you have that I need right now versus if it didn't matter to me at that moment, we don't care what you did three years ago, versus you might have knowledge of this of a software program, a process or something that I can leverage in the organization for something we're gonna do three years later. Um, so our our leaders don't know how to have these conversations because it's it's people. It's you have to sit down and have squishy conversations to ask them, you know, what are your career goals? What drives you? And those are not conversations leaders are used to having a one-on-one, which is a work in progress, to say, okay, John, tell me, give me an update on this project.

John Broer 14:36

Right.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 14:36

Uh, what do you know? What do you need to know? And and they focus more on the tactical. And I think we need to educate to have the ability to have this comfortable conversation without judgment, which is hard. The other piece is when we look at career pathing in organizations, and I know Jen and her organization has done a lot of work on this. Sometimes we have individuals that are perfectly happy where they're at. And that bottlenecks somebody moving into that role because they're they're happy, they may have plateaued, but they're an amazing contributor and they're doing all the things they need to know to do, right? They're exceeding our expectations. But either A, we're going to hold them back in that role because they're so valuable, or B, we don't want to disrupt that. So we have all of these individuals that maybe aspire to be that or looking to get that skill set that we are not willing to kind of disrupt their status quo. And that becomes a bottleneck on perceived career path in the organization. There's ways we can get around that. And these are the types of conversations I like to have with organizations and with leaders to say, okay, if we can't move that person into this role and we don't want to disrupt it, how do we get them as Jen hit highlight? It's an experience game. How do we get them to have those experiences to build those skills, to be ready when we move them, or enhance the things they're doing in their role now? So I think if if we have the structure in place to be able to collect this data and empower our leaders to be comfortable having people-related conversations versus tactical only work um conversations, I think that we can help address the bottleneck or find it's like using Google Maps. We can find ways around that roadblock that still align with where the organization needs to go.

Real-World Fixes Leaders Can Use

John Broer 16:30

Yeah. You know, you something that stands out for me is you you're talking about leaders, leaders need to be active participants in this process. Whereas an old model that we, you know, need to go away, they default or almost say, well, let's get human capital, let's get HR to deal with this. And I'm not I'm not suggesting that HR and our human capital colleagues don't play a critical role, but it's almost like you're abdicating your responsibility and being an active participant in the growth and in the development of your people. And then and then organizations, they don't even realize that they make that more difficult because they give managers, supervisors, leaders 10, 15 people to manage. There's no way you could do that. It's absolutely impossible. So this is again a different mindset. If we have organizations that say, you know what, we're gonna cap out direct reports for any particular manager or supervisor to I don't know, a typical range we use is five to seven. It could be very different. But I've said that to organizations. They say, I mean, we we'd have to split teams up and we'd have more managers. It's like, okay. I mean, you say that like it's a bad thing, but your your turnover rates are such that you could you you could probably offset that cost by having more direct development from the leadership or the managers for the direct reports. So again, we live this every single day, and sometimes I just get surprised. It's like, I how is it that you don't see how solvable this is? But maybe I'll cut that out. That sounds a little condescending. But anyway, anyway, you know where I am. Sorry. Okay. Um so let's talk a little bit about real real world examples. Uh, I know both of you have extensive experience in this, and I think if I both of you could share a little bit of like this is a practical application. This is something that I've done and it works, and you could do it too. Just a couple of examples I think would be super, super, super helpful for our listeners. So we'll keep it equitable. Tina Marie, do you want to kick it off?

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 18:44

I think one way we can start this process is before we hire. So it's kind of re-imagining this whole talent management end-to-end. Okay. So the conversations we're having with potential employees before they come in the door. Uh, and then kind of translating that into the realities once they get in the organization. And and John, I want to highlight you were talking about span of control. And I think sometimes we focus more on the numbers. I'm gonna say numbers in both ways, numbers of financial numbers. So we want to have somebody do more with less. Um, or we focus more on um not looking at that impact when the span of control is too great. So, from a real world perspective, having a conversation with a leader in a matrix organization, not a big fan, where you have dual reporting. Okay, I'm gonna report to this person and this person, and they have conflicting needs. So it's like saying HR report to finance and report to operations. It's like dueling pianos.

John Broer 19:55

Yeah.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 19:56

But was having a conversation um with a leader that is is because of that matrix organization, has like 17 direct reports.

John Broer 20:06

Oh my gosh. Okay.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 20:07

And so they were like, how do I have this conversation where there's only one of me? I would have to schedule one-on-ones and I'm I'm blocking, tackling, and doing all these things.

John Broer 20:16

Right.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 20:17

And looking for, do you even have a successor? Like, who can we like, you know, have these developmental conversations with? And so you think that's it's 17 direct reports, and then within the bottoms of these organizations, you're looking at probably 200 people between those 16 and their respective, I'm gonna say, linear uh reporting. And the person's just overwhelmed and nothing's getting done.

John Broer 20:43

Yeah.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 20:43

So I think part of what we need to do if we want to address this issue and make it more holistic is we start to make it ingrained in the culture and it starts with the hiring process. And then from a managerial perspective, we need to empower the leaders that are managing it and say boots on the ground that are really gonna manage this process because we in HR can't. We can coach, we can advocate, we can design the structure, we can help hold you accountable with nudges, but we cannot have these conversations on your behalf. We're not in your department, we don't see things day to day. So we need to remove the barriers that are preventing them from having the capacity to really look at this process and invest their time in the process. Um, because the old school of thought, um, and I think Jen mentioned this as well, the old the way we've always done it is you check a box. We're only dealing with these people. I'm gonna look at it once a year and be like, oh yeah, you know, Jen's great. I'm gonna put her on my succession plan. And then 364 days later, we have this conversation again.

John Broer 21:47

Right.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 21:47

Focusing on that day and not. So empowering leaders to have the capacity, investing in them as much as we're asking them to invest in their people, um, in creating. A structure that allows them to be part of the process. And the way we've always done it since 1984 is, you know, uh not working in 2026.

John Broer 22:13

Right, right. You make me think of over the last couple of years, a big theme of ours has been reinventing the manager. And maybe it's re-envisioning who is really, who should be in management and supervisory roles. And what always percolates to the top is EQ. You know, before it used to be what is in their briefcase, what's on their resume, what are the tactical or even the um more business focused elements in a that this person has to be a manager versus the people side, which is what you were talking about before. And so you you just you just simply made me think of this rethinking of the people that we ought to even be considering for managers because they have to be invested in the people. So, Jen, real-world examples of where you're seeing this played out successfully.

Jennifer DuPont 23:06

Well, I agree with Tina Marie. And as we talk about span of control and making sure that we have space for those conversations, to me, that's one of the biggest gaps. We're all so busy. You know, it's easy to cancel that one-on-one. But if you don't have time to meet with someone once a week to check in with them and have those conversations, you have too many directs or you're not in the right role. So I think those are things we need to look at. Um, I do love, and Tana Marie knows I love Marcus Buckingham and his research, but he always talks about span of care. If you can't care for the amount of people, then maybe you have too many or maybe you're not in the right role. So I don't know if there is a magic number. I get that question often. I really think it does depend on the work, it depends on the leader, it depends on where people are at in their career. So those things are important. I think developing leaders to have the skills and the training. You know, we often promote people that are really great individual contributors because they're good at their job without taking the time to evaluate their ability to lead people and giving them the tools and resources. And it's not a one and done when you get promoted. It's constant, it's ongoing.

John Broer 24:05

Yeah.

Jennifer DuPont 24:06

So we have to create those spaces. But, you know, I also think about um removing barriers for people. And often we want to hope our leader has our best interest in mind, but leaders don't want to lose talent. If you have a rock star employee, to have them move on creates a gap and it creates more work for you to have to fill that, train that person. So, what I've often found is when we look at our career structures and organizations and we look at those roles and we think about people that might be blocking, we've got to think about the future. And the roles of the future might not even be in that structure right now. So I know when I coach people, I often tell them think about creating roles, solving problems in organizations that they may not even know they have right now. And you may create a different role for yourself. I've had that happen many times in my career. So it's it's important to think about that, but also giving employees the ability to opt into these experiences themselves. So I do think the future is going to be these talent marketplaces where organizations have problems they need to solve, projects, um, initiatives, pulling together teams quickly that have interest, have capacity, and want to learn and grow and stretch is going to be critical, but let them opt into it. If we let the managers pick and choose the same people all the time or make those assumptions. I mean, I think we've all been in succession planning meetings where people are assuming things and your HR in the back of the room going, I don't know if they really want to be in that role, or have you had that conversation with the employee? Right. So I think we've got to take those barriers off the table. And, you know, it does become for fairness, for equity as well. Let people raise their hand for those things and have interest in it. So I think as HR professionals, you know, we can think about those systems and structures and how the future of work is going to operate. How do we help remove some of those barriers and give people the opportunity to say at this point in my life, whether it's individual contributor, leadership, project, initiative, I want this. I want to do it and I'm willing to learn.

Talent Marketplaces And Opt-In Growth

Start Small With Coaching And Upskilling

John Broer 26:05

Yep. And and learn. And create that space for it. Yeah. Exactly. I had a I worked with a a CEO. Actually, I think there's an episode. We don't use any real names, but I think I there was an episode on some bosshole behavior from this individual. And there was somebody on the team that um they had a tuition reimbursement policy for the organization. Somebody on the team wanted to go get a master's degree or or or some sort of a degree that was really inconsistent with the business. I mean, it really there was no alignment to the business specifically. I mean, you could not make a direct connection. And he said, Well, I'm not gonna permit that. And I said, wait a second, hold on. I I said, you know, this is a person who has demonstrated an interest to learn. You have made this available, and there is no caveat that says it has to be related to the business or the outcome of the business. And I said, You're gonna shut this person down or completely deny them the opportunity to grow in some way, because his concern was, well, but what if they get, you know, interested in that field and we lose them? It's like, wow, you know, you have just this this is proving the point that we're talking about right here. You don't have an interest in this individual's growth and development other than how it serves the organization. And I I get it, but it just seems so narrow-minded. It seems so limiting that we're we're going to constrain our people to this where we want them to opt in, be participants in their own development and their growth. As a matter of fact, there's a client uh or an organization with which I'm familiar that, and I think you both know our work at Real Good Ventures stems around talent optimization. I know Atina Marie, I love talent alignment. I love that term. We use um analytics, we use behavioral data, EQ data. All we're looking for is objective data to help optimize where somebody thrives in an organization. We know of an organization that says we don't care what's on their resume. We want to use their behavioral, cognitive, EQ data and have a fit in the organization. We will give them the resume. I don't care. And I mean, they're very serious about it. They said, I don't care what's in their what their credentials are and on their CVs or or what we call their briefcase. I don't know of any other organization that that does that as intentionally as this one I'm thinking about. That's pretty radical. But they also have a very healthy and robust training and development and learning pathway. And that will benefit every organization as we start to think about the workplace in the future. Are you giving access to people to grow in ways that perhaps you haven't even thought? All right. So I want you to imagine that you're there's a listener to the Boss Hole Chronicles, and we got a lot of them out there, and they're going, okay, I mean, I get this. This is really helpful. I don't have anything like this. Where do I start? What is the, what is the, what is something that I could do today, tomorrow, next week to really begin to um step into this world where we are creating, we're empowering employees, we are creating this lattice, we are um, you know, this individual contributor pathway is healthy. Jen, what would what advice would you give that listener?

Jennifer DuPont 29:31

I think there are a lot of ways that you can address that. And obviously, you know, as we're talking through investing and training and development and all of the amazing things to support employees, we all know that we're up against financial pressure as well in the workplace. So it's not always possible to do all of those things, but I think you can start small, you can create spaces for coaching, for listening. And if you have resource groups where people can highlight their non-traditional careers and their success. I remember when I got my first corporate job, I just assumed everybody had a degree in the field and they were experts. I was shocked to meet with people and learn how they got to their role. It wasn't always traditional. So I think creating space for human connection to understand how people get to different places, how they succeed, what success looks like can be really, really important and eye-opening for people. So I think that's a good place to start. And then thinking about skills, you know, the future of work is changing as we think about AI, as we think about automation. The organizations that will do this well are going to build employees as they evolve. So if we think about what's changing, how are we creating skills training? Start upskilling people. Give them that opportunity. And it doesn't have to be expensive. You know, HR can get really creative about building training, pulling in resources, but letting people know that I see you, I'm investing in you, and I want you to succeed in your career goes a long way. So I think just taking some of those small intentional steps to help people. And I like I said, I love getting in front of employees because if we give it to the managers, it doesn't always get passed down sometimes, right? We're solving day-to-day problems. And again, I don't think people leaders have ill intent. They're busy, they're trying to get through it the least amount of friction and disruption. And sometimes taking someone off work for an hour to train or have a conversation can be disruptive. But we've got to show the value. So always start with the problem, start with the opportunity and why you're investing the time. I think if we can do that better, people will see the why behind it. And then start to highlight the success stories. You know, where do these things happen in organizations where someone's been in a great individual contributor role for a long time and they've evolved and they've trained other people and they've taken on projects. Share that, recognize that. You know, people we're human. We're going to follow what's what behaviors are out there and what gets recognized. When people see that, I think it sends a pretty strong message that we value you as an individual contributor as well.

John Broer 31:59

Nice. Love it. Love it. Tina Marie, you're talking to uh one of our listeners out there. Same question. What it what advice would you give them?

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 32:09

Control what you can control. And so you don't necessarily have to have it's organic change. You have the ability, if you are a leader or if you are trying to manage your own career to try to foster some of these conversations um within your reach. So as leaders, and I'm going back to that person that had 17, the span of control of 17, where they could start having conversations and asking their people the questions so they know what they know. They know how they know, um, they know how they learn, um, getting to know what their career goals are and trying to create space to have those one-on-one conversations and have them a little more frequently than once a year in our traditional performance review. Also, if they you have the ability, if you're a hiring manager, to look at that recruiting process differently in the questions you ask of those candidates in the process to figure out how they learn. Uh, I think that Jen hit it right square is that you know, the the needs, the skills needed in organizations are changing and we have to adapt. Well, how does our existing workplace um workforce or the the you know potential workforce, how do they, how do they learn? Um, and that will help you kind of uh again align those career experiences with them. Um, but what I said to the to the leader that had that large span um when they were looking at trying to figure out for their own, they were drowning, like how do I control my own path when I have these things going on? Is start simple and just make space and have a conversation. So if you're in a one-on-one, ask them, well, well, you know, what are your career goals? What what do you like to do? How do you like to learn? Is there, you know, some training or is there if you could take one thing out of your job or do something that's not there, what would you love to do? And find more about the your employees as people. And then when those opportunities align, you can have those conversations with them. The last piece I will say is we should not limit ourselves by title. And so sometimes people think career path is very linear and title driven versus experiences driven and what you're able to acquire in that role. Um, and as leaders, if we've taken our people as far as we can take them, we have to let them go. And it's okay to set them free.

John Broer 34:42

Yeah.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 34:42

And so we can't limit it based on our needs, but if we can help open a door, um, those people become boomerangs. They go get that missing piece and then they want to come back. And it's okay if we want to work for them. I tell leaders, like, hey, if you got a person that's amazing, freaking rock star, why not work for them? You know how amazing they are. It's okay. This isn't do anything to your ego.

John Broer 35:05

Right, right.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 35:06

Um, those are things that we have in the span of control. And if you start doing something right as a leader, and in the situation with that person with the huge span of control that was struggling, um, they do employee engagement surveys. And out of a uh Linkert score, they got like 4.7 out of five.

John Broer 35:27

Wow.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 35:28

So the people in the span of their conversation, because they started being more intentional and getting to know their people as people, rated this leader of 4.7 out of five, that they care about them as people, that they can have conversations, they're concerned about my career path. And, you know, I said that's a testament for what we need to see more of. So in organizations that are larger, let's just say um, when you start having success of this is the manager everybody wants to work for. They have low turnover, they have a lot of success. They're they're hitting these projects out of the park. They know if they need something, they're gonna call Jen. I call Jen MacGyver, by the way. Her HR name, secret code name is MacGyver, but they're gonna call Jen because she's doing all these things. Guess what? It's organic change. Somebody's gonna come to you and be like, hey, what are you doing? Can you can you help me? Because I'd like to do that too.

John Broer 36:24

Right.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 36:24

And then it starts from the bottom up and it trickles up and becomes more of an acceptable process.

John Broer 36:30

Yeah. You're making me think of, you know, organizations today and and not only the future of the workplace, but today's workplace. Uh, I'm thinking of words like dynamic, you said organic. It's like an ecosystem. And it you can't treat it like treat it like something that is static and highly predictable because there are humans that populate it. Uh, and at the at the core of this is how do we humanize the way we work and how we empower and equip our managers and supervisors to truly make that connection with their people? This is all so helpful. Well, I'm I'm gonna ask you both. I've been just pounding you with questions, and I want to just hear from you. Is there anything we haven't covered that is really necessary for our listeners to hear from either of you today?

Jennifer DuPont 37:23

I do think this is really critical as we think about the younger generations right now.

John Broer 37:27

Okay.

Jennifer DuPont 37:28

And as I know Tina, Marie and I do coaching with, you know, high school age or college age kids as they're trying to figure out their careers. I think it's really critical that we're doing this in the workplace and providing them different experiences, opportunities, because there is that expectation that I'm going to come in, I have to learn a job, I have to promote. They feel that pressure. And sometimes they're not even in the field they thought they wanted to be in. Right. So I think it's really important. And I mean, the data that there was just a Gallup survey that came out that talked about that, where younger generations early in their career, this is really critical that we're providing that development for them and we're showing them those experiences, those different skills and training opportunities. Otherwise, we are not going to be able to retain them. And it's going to be, you know, impactful for our brand as employers that we're doing this. So I think that's an area that we need to invest in as we think about people coming into the workplace and and how we show them, you know, for the first time what this experience looks like in a positive way. And understanding if something doesn't work out, it's okay to try a different experience or move to a different role. So, you know, I'm seeing more of this in college, which I love, but it is starting as people move over into the workplace. We've got to be able to support them through that. Right. And, you know, having mentor programs and rotations and you know, different things that we've built in the workplace, I think are going to be really important for that generation. We can't assume everybody's got it all figured out.

John Broer 38:54

Uh yeah, because nobody has it figured out. That's exactly right. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Tana Maria, any thoughts?

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 39:01

Um, we need to recognize what what our employees want is a data point in time.

John Broer 39:08

Yeah.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 39:09

And that data point changes and evolves based on what's going on within your four walls and what's going on outside. Uh, and so we don't want to assume that Jen's gonna hang out and wait around to get into that role. It's ego sometimes where we just assume that they trust that we know as the company what's best for them for their career. Um, but it's their career to own, manage, nurture, and grow. And so we are a part of that process. But we also have to recognize that when we sit down and have these succession planning or talent management conversations, that what we what happened yesterday, you know, people know who your good people are and they're gonna call and have a conversation and say, hey, have you thought about doing this?

John Broer 39:59

Yeah.

Tina-Marie Wohlfield 40:00

And they might listen, they might bite, they might not. But that makes them self-reflect on what's important to them and what they want in their career goals should change um as they grow and mature in their careers. And we have to be open and flexible to that as well when we're looking at how we're gonna navigate that talent in our organization.

Jennifer DuPont 40:22

Tina Maria, I think that's a great point. And I think for employees, things change in their life. You know, you have employees, we assume they want to take on roles, relocate, travel. Then someone gets married, has that kid. Life changes, right? So we have to always be checking in to see where they're at at that point in their career and what they're looking for and what satisfies them. Because just as our business environment is always changing, I think employees are always changing as well. So it's really critical that we are creating that space for it.

Key Takeaways And Closing

John Broer 40:49

Very good. I tell you what, I've been so excited about this episode. Uh, I think both of you have provided great perspective and some very practical things that people can do. And they just need to start. They need to figure out how to create this, especially if they want to sustain or be in a position to attract and retain the talent and not only the emerging workforce, but the workforce that is finding it very easy to move around. I I will tell you that we just did an episode on this. Glassdoor did a um a published a report from their 2025 findings that misalignment between managers and direct reports has been reported as the most critical issue. Actually, a hundred and it increased 149% more than what they had seen before statistically, based on feedback within the platform. And everything we've talked about today is how we create that alignment. And that is something that is so reversible. And I would encourage our listeners to one, go and learn more about Jen's work and Tina Marie's work, but get to know these people and the wonderful work that they're doing and realize that this is the stuff that is going to define the workplace of the future. Actually, it should be defining it right now. So no, no better time than the present to make it happen. So, Tina Marie, Jen, thank you so much. It was so great having you on the program.

Jennifer DuPont 42:21

Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.

John Broer 42:23

You bet. All right, everybody. We will see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles. Thanks very much for checking out this episode of The Bosshole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here. And if you have your own bosshole story that you want to share with The Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory at the Bosshole Chronicles.com. Again, my story at the Bossholechronicles.com. We'll see you next time.